My ICM recently went out so I purchased a new one. When the car get warm it misses a little and runs a little worse than when its cool. I have spaced out the coil bracket from the block and spaced the ICM from the coil bracket. What would you all think of putting a heatsink fan to the underside of the ICM module ( or the underside of the cooling rack). It can be hooked up to the fans so that once they come on, so does the ICM cooling fan. I have a couple of them which came off computers and seem to do the job for a processor chip, so why not an ICM? Let me know what you all think!

 

I've heard good and bad things about spacing the coil bracket out off the head. On the plus side it runs cooler with the air gap in there. BUt when you shut off the engine it takes 2-3 times as long too cool down because of the reduced contact area.

I'm not sure if I undersand you right. Did you space the module up off the coil bracket? If so, undo it now! The module will fry because it can't cool down if it isn't in cantact with the coil mount bracket.

 

No, not the module itself! The module is connected to a cooling rack (aluminum piece with the fins on it) , and the cooling rack is connected to the coil bracket which contains the coil. what im saying is I kept the ICM on the cooling rack, but spaced the actual cooling rack with the ICM on it. With less suface area touching the hot coil bracket and block, this allows it to stay cooler, right? What I was saying is to put a heatsink fan from a computer onto the underside of the cooling rack itself. Also how do you figure that spacing it out makes the engine cool down 2-3 times slower because of reduced contact area?

 

He was saying the the ICM may not cool as fast with it spaced off the block, because of the lack of the head surface for a heat sink. I doubt that it would take much time for the two temps to equalize.

 

Are you using silicone grease? Not using the grease is a quick way to kill an ICM.

 

I guess so. The grease came with the ICM. Do you think cooling the ICM would be a good idea?

 

You might want to try what I did, I mounted my icm on a 4x4
alum. heatsink from Radio Shack and installed it about a ft. away
from the engine and it is nice and cool.

Dave B

 

great idea! Has anyone tried this? Cant you just use the original aluminum piece, why did you buy another? Also, does anyone know how to hook up the fan to the cars wiring? How would you wire so that it is in synch with the cars fans? Is that safe?